Happy New Year! We hope that the first few weeks of the new year have treated you as gently as possible. These continue to be trying times, made worse with the Omicron surge and frigid winter temperatures. Nevertheless, we've hit the cold ground of the new year with our wheels spinning.
Our inaugural youth organizing fellow, Alicia, is learning the ropes and it already feels like she's been on our team forever. Our campaigns have moved forward in interesting and unexpected ways. Overall, our year is shaping up to be full of much-needed projects and collaborations. We're excited to share more with you in this newsletter, and beyond.
But first, we hope you'll follow and share our new Instagram account! It's long past time we got on the social media site that young folks use the most. So help us boost our reach on there, so we can share more realtime news, resources and updates from our work throughout the year. Shoutout Alicia for making it happen.
As always, thanks for your support. These are difficult times, but we're grateful to know that we're in it together with people like you.
-Debbie, AFSC Chicago Peacebuilding Coordinator
(Header photo by @thoughtpoet77)
ANNOUNCEMENT
As you know, we work to divest from policing, criminalization and surveillance and invest in communities instead, through training, youth organizing, multi-racial campaigns and art and educational programs.
If you're on Instagram, follow us @afscchipeace, for regular updates from our work. We got lots in store for 2022.
Photo cred: @thoughtpoet77
IMG description: Youth activists stood in front of JTDC as part of noise demo in solidarity for youth locked up. Shout out to @chifreeschool & @thefinal5campaign for the collab of this action in the end of 2021.
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#FreeThemAll
Loud & Lit Up Reflection
As 2021 came to a close, we gathered with dozens of young people and supporters from across Chicago to demand youth be home for the holidays, and that the city end its harmful practice of youth incarceration.
Hear more about the powerful solidarity action that night from our new youth organizing fellow, Alicia Brown, in this reflective blog post and call to action.
What's more - she authored a letter to the Sun Times about the ways that incarcerated youth are being denied safety during COVID! Read it and share!
2022 promises to be a year where elevate the demand to close the Final Five remaining youth prisons in Illinois, and get our City and State to invest in youth needs that will prevent the cycle of incarceration. We look forward to your support throughout the year. The stakes could not be higher.
Photos by @thoughtpoet77
Youth organizing updates
The fierce young organizers we support have already been hard at work in 2022; fighting for safe learning conditions in Chicago Public Schools during the COVID-19 pandemic, and to get the City of Chicago to divest from policing & war-profiteering and invest in youth and communities instead.
Here are a couple of recent updates in case you missed them:
The #BoeingArmsGenocide Campaign
Youth organizers with Dissenters published this expose of the City of Chicago's contract with mega arms manufacturer, Boeing. In December we joined them in a meeting with the Office of the Inspector General to raise our concerns about the contract, and in January we met with Alder Maria Hadden's office. Stay tuned as we'll be sharing big news in the coming weeks!
READ MORE
Sullivan H.S. Students for Social Justice!
After creating a club for social justice at their school, students partnered with AFSC to bring youth organizers from across the city to their classroom for a virtual guest speaker series before planning their next campaign. Read about it in this blog post, by Sullivan H.S. Student Rubi Mendez!
Plus we want to shoutout the youth from Sullivan who organized a walkout over learning conditions during COVID. Over 150 students walked out, and dozens made it to a rally downtown, making loud and clear the importance of listening to students when creating school policies which affect their lives.
READ MORE
NEW RESOURCE
Practicing Abolition, Creating Community.
We're thrilled to share this new zine by writer and artist Benji Hart expanding on how they practice abolition on a daily basis. Benji is a long-time partner of our youth organizing work, and we're so grateful for their contributions to abolitionist movements and practices.
This zine “Practicing Abolition, Creating Community” was beautifully illustrated by Emma Li and commissioned by Project Nia, who made it freely downloadable here. In addition, for those who might find it easier to access, you can read the non-illustrated version of Benji’s words here: https://bit.ly/BenjiEssay.
